Road to the Stars

Prologue

GMT: 8:00 am
EST: 3:00 am

"YOU CAN COME out now."
Tessa and Aubree gently creep up from their hiding place behind the potted plants standing like soldiers at the far end of my little garden. It is way past my curfew but I couldn't resist the urge to meet them once before walking into predicted hell, pretentiously willingly.

I had texted them earlier that night to come over for the last time before hell is set loose. My mom can't stand the idea of me acting as if I am going to step in front of a train speeding at 110 miles per hour but jumping off a jet plane is exactly how I see this situation.

When I heard mom snoring, I sneaked out in the garden and found my two best friends at our regular hiding spot. They walk sincerely and silently behind me because we all knew that one noise could alert the devil residing in the den below. No sooner had we reached the safe quarters of my all too familiar room than they started firing questions at me in hushed voices. My room was no sound proof music testing compartment, but with mom's room being one floor below, the chances of her catching us were just a little more than zero. But still, we couldn't risk talking normally as no one ever wants to confront a sleep-deprived mom who catches you doing the exact thing she asked you not to. In the middle of the night.

"What is wrong with you, Cass?!" Aubree's voice sounds remarkably weird as she tries to suppress a yawn. "I understand that this was all forced on you with no prior warning but it's not like you're gonna die or something."

"Plus, what could possibly go wrong in a two-day trip to your father's wedding?" Tessa sounds equally pissed off that I made them do this little rendezvous in the middle of the night but that's what best friends are for, right? RIGHT?!

The words 'your father's wedding' ring in my ears like the screeching sound of the fire alarm and make me wonder if I'll ever get familiar with that phrase. After all, you don't see a husband cheat on his wife after living happily together for 19 years everyday. My mom avoids talking about the divorce but I can't believe she really thinks that I bought the whole 'we just grew distant' crap. Like, come on, you can't treat a soon-to-be adult as an infant and deny stuff that is clearly visible. It's like drinking water from a glass while continuously saying that it's empty. I thought you were smarter than that, mom.

My father never really talked to me after the whole divorce thing was final but it was obvious he didn't have a lot to say to me since I made it really clear that I believed that it was solely his fault. So I never really got to the core of the case but my expert eavesdropping quality which I gained during my childhood helped me put some parts of it together.

"Well, there are a lot of things that are meant to be but still go wrong. My little 'oh so perfect' family didn't need to shatter in an instant." Recently, I've gained this not so beneficial habit of taking every conversation to the Divorce. Though Tessa and Aubree see this as a pity-worthy situation as well, they stayed put as their optimistic selves and didn't let their worry reach till me. They knew a bit too well that I already had enough to deal with. "That is, apart from the plane crashing in the Pacific Ocean."

"Don't you think you exaggerating just a tiny bit?" Though Tes had a really innocent face on, bearing with her for the last 8 years makes it clear that a tiny bit is not the exact term she wanted to use. You can be open, babe. We all know what you're thinking.

"And you're actually tying the family back together by attending your father's wedding more than you're shattering it, love."

"Wouldn't it be tied together better if mom visited dad on his second very special day."

"We don't have a say in that now, do we?" Tessa tries too hard to make this look a bit less horrible but inside she knows there's nothing she can do to save me from stepping in lava. Or more like stopping my mom from pushing me in the center of a volcano.

"Consider yourself lucky, Hun. Not every child gets to see their father dressed in a wedding-day tuxedo after all." Aubree, ladies and gentlemen. Trust her to make being eaten by sharks look like a totally privileged situation.

"Guess I'm not one of those kids then."